 gallants in the lords’ rooms.* 
BLACKFRIARS THEATRE BUILDING 43 
Dekker evidently thinking in an- 
_ other instance of the gallantly dressed audience on the Blackfriars 
stage as constituting the chief part of the “city” of elegance calls 
these lords’ rooms “now but the Stages Suburbs.” 
The stage was in the south end of the “Great Hall.’* 
It has been assumed since the days of Wright’s Historia H1s- 
_trionica (1699), and widely disseminated on the authority of 
“ 
Malone’ that the Blackfriars stage was small. But “small” and 
“large” are such merely relative terms that upon the basis of mod- 
ern notions no private or pubiic stage of Shakespeare’s time could 
be regarded as “large.” The best we can do is to take a com- 
parative view of the stages of the time on their own basis. 
The assumption that Blackfriars stage was small is based upon 
_ the primary assumption that all the private theatres—Blackfriars, 
Whitefriars, Paul’s, Cockpit, Salisbury Court—were built alike 
and had stages alike. But in fact the only reference cited by 
Malone, Collier, and the rest on the size of Blackfriars stage is 
taken from a Paul’s play.® Quite the reverse of the usual opinion, 
the truth seems to be that the stages of the public theatres had 
are labeled “orchestra” (1%. e., in the 
Latin sense), and are mentioned in 
_ the Fortune contract, the Hope con- 
tract, and numerous plays as “gen- 
tlemen’s rooms.” 
44-45, 136-41. 
But the physical nature of Black- 
friars building and stage required 
a different arrangement. Our pri- 
vate boxes are the outgrowth. 
*Cf. supra, 41°. 
*Infra, 140°, 141-42. 
*The stage could not have been 
placed in the way of the main en- 
trance, which was at the north when 
the purchase was made by Burbage. 
No other entrance after the remod- 
eling could have led to all the de- 
mised premises. The stage is fur- 
ther excluded from the north end 
as also from the sides of the hall 
by one of the recently discovered 
documents (wu. s., 364) which men- 
tions minor repairs in the en- 
trance leading to all the premises, 
and in the east and west walls and 
the floor along the east side of the 
See also infra,-... 
hall and under the east end of the 
stage. It speaks of the need of re- 
pair “in exteriori ostio ducente ad 
praedicta dimissa praemissa et 
in paviamento per orientalem 
partem praedictae Aulae et in 
paviamento subter orientalem finem 
Cuiusdam Theatri anglice the Stage 
in Aula praedicta” &c. 
*Infra, 43°. 
5Infra, 43°. 
*See infra, 130-31". 
Malone (op. ctt., III, 61°), how- 
ever, seems to base his conclusion 
on James Wright’s statement in 
Historia Histrionica (u. s., 36°, 39°) 
concerning the similar size and 
form of Blackfriars, Cockpit, and 
Salisbury Court, coupled with two 
lines of the epilogue to Thomas 
Nabbes’s Tottenham Court, acted at 
Salisbury Court 1638 (cf. title- 
page), which read as follows: 
“When others’ fill’d rooms 
neglect disdain ye, 
My little house with thanks shall 
entertain ye.” 
with 
157 
